Princess at Sea (28 page)

Jeck's eyes were black in the dim light. “You told him how to get out of the pit?” he questioned, and when I said nothing, he raised a placating hand. “Fine. Call the wind.”

It was patronizing and all but dripped scorn. Suddenly unsure, I shifted from foot to foot. The stars were few and small, and Jeck's silhouette was sharp against the lowering moon as we rode the slow swells. “Well?” he mocked, and my jaw clenched.

“Stop watching me,” I demanded.

My face burned when he laughed and turned away, bending his knees and resettling himself on his useless raft. “Call the wind,” he muttered.

I stiffened. “Kavenlow would believe me.”

“Kavenlow is a dreamer. See what he dreamed up with you?”

It was very close to an insult—not like Jeck at all—and I wondered if he was worried that I could actually do it or if he might be jealous of Kavenlow's love for me. The punta could do it; I could do it. I had to do it. For my sister. For Kavenlow's game that I'd fouled up yet again with my inexperience and naïveté.

Hand upon the mast to steady myself, I snuck a glance at Jeck. He sat as if he weren't there, his eyes on the horizon, his mind on other things. Taking a steadying breath, I closed my eyes, willing my magic to fill me.

The vertigo came quickly, as if it had been waiting. Fingers tingling, I tightened my grip on the mast and shifted my feet. My heart pounded, sending a second, higher surge of venom into me. It was as if the last four days of the toxin working its way out of me hadn't happened. I was simmering with it still. Blinking profusely to ward off the dizziness, I snuck a glance at Jeck to be sure he wasn't watching, then closed my eyes again. I could do this.

The blackness of the night was replaced by the blackness of my mind. Thick and potent, I felt the force in me rise, waiting for direction. My heart pounded and my knees grew watery at the strength of it. I'd never had so much magic in me. The punta bite had shifted my balance far beyond safe levels. But it was easier to bear now that I wasn't so weak. Or maybe I was just getting used to it.
Kavenlow,
I thought in shame.
What am I going to tell him?

The surging power tugged at me, and my heart leapt into my throat when it all but slipped my grip. My shoulder started to throb, and my right leg and arm went numb. My breath became shaky, and I worked to even it out before Jeck heard. With a shock, I realized I had fallen into a pattern of three breaths and a pause, just like the punta's. It seemed to help with the vertigo, and so I kept to it, trying to be unobtrusive as Jeck sat four feet away from me and sulked that his fine new raft was useless without wind.

As my blood hummed with the potential in me, my mind returned to the pit and the punta. The big cat had called from the upper sky a fast-moving blast of air, channeling it with his will to a path it wouldn't take on its own. I needed far more than a whirl-a-wind. I had to call a veritable storm to reach the coast quick enough to do any good, and storms were born not in the upper reaches of the sky but the deep ocean.

Softly, carefully, I sent out a questing thought, skimming it above the slow wave tops the texture of black silk, past the warm current that kept my kingdom free from the worst of winter's cold, past the rising and falling mountains of waves. I sent my thoughts past the curve of the earth to the deep ocean, where the rays don't go, out to where the wind gathers power from the waves, which steal it from the moon and the tides born from the spinning of the earth and sun.

I shivered as the warmth of noon enveloped me, coming from within. The glitter of the sun on bright wave tops sparkled behind my closed eyelids, burning my vision though the sun was down. I heard the lonely cry of the albatross.
Here
, I thought.
Here is where devil storms are made.
But around me was nothing but soft whispers of wind. There was no storm to control.

You are mine
, I whispered to the soft zephyr of wind coming from a sun-heated wave top.
Wake. You will come to me.

My soul found and tentatively gathered a stillpoint of heat. The gust rose and flitted from me, and I snatched it with my will, trying to hold it, trying to bring it to awareness.
Wake.

The gust rounded on me, turning into a breeze in its anger to escape me. I expanded my reach, soothing it.
How dare I?
it seemed to question when I surrounded it with my strength, claiming it as my own.

My pulse leapt, and it grew, taking power from the waves under it and the hot sky above. The breeze rose to become a wind, tearing the tops of the glittering waves and pushing them away in its sullen temper. I felt myself stagger when venom spilled into my veins, strengthening my will. Renewed, I fastened upon the wind, demanding obedience.
You are mine
, I thought.
You're mine until I free you. Do what I say, and I'll free you.

It roared at me, whipping about and thundering its defiance. It pressed the waves flat for an instant, then pulled them high. Violent and wild, it tore at my thoughts, screaming at me as it tried to shred my will to break free. It grew to a murderous size, roaring up into the blue sky, falling back to smash into my thoughts.

I held firm, demanding that it find me. With the strength of the punta coursing through me, I had it. It was mine. It couldn't escape. The power of the spinning earth and rising sun was mine. Not until it did my will would I let it go.

And it swirled into a sly obedience, settling into my thoughts with false platitudes of submission. Flattening out the waves, it raced to find me. Like a child with a lie, I could see its intent. It was going to kill me.

I gasped, snapping back to myself and finding my hand atop the mast. Jeck was standing before me, his coat open and his pant legs rolled back down. I didn't remember him getting up. “Tess?” he questioned, his wide shoulders hunched and his brown eyes concerned.

A zephyr sent a curl to dance about my face. A chill took me at the thought of what I had woken. “I found the wind,” I whispered, knowing the zephyr was a vanguard of the storm I had called. It would follow the zephyr to me to fall upon us like lions.

“You what?”

“I found the wind.” The mast under my hand started to hum. My face tightened in alarm, and seeing it, Jeck bent his head to mine in worry. The force running in the mast doubled, and my grip upon it seemed to go numb. A breeze shifted my hair, and the slack sail tugged at its ropes and went still.

“God help me,” I whispered, looking up at the stars against the fluttering sail. “Listen.” I put a hand higher atop the mast. The faint fear in me hesitated when the breeze whispered in my ear. It was coming. I could hear the zephyr that the storm had left in my mind—it would be the trail the storm would follow to find me.

A ray broke the surface in a soft splash. My eyes rose from the trail of bubbles to Jeck's. “It's coming.” The feeling of satisfaction tightened about my heart, pulled by the strengthening wind billowing the sail to a soft fullness. I had to get higher. I had to be among it. Eyes on the sky, I gripped the mast and tried to stand atop the water casks.

“Tess!” Jeck took hold of my left arm and jerked me back down. “What are you doing?”

I stumbled, catching my balance easily. “Can't you feel it?” I said, elated. I had captured the wind. It couldn't hurt me. I was stronger than it.

“Feel what?” He stared at me as if I had gone insane, but the coming wind had set my soul to resonate like a wire, making my blood hum in time with the waves under my feet.

He was still gripping my wrist, and I tried to tug free, failing. “The wind,” I said, having to think about the words before I said them. “Listen.” I threw my head to the sky. “It's coming!”

His lips parted, and his eyes grew wider. “Tess? Are you all right?”

“Yes . . .” It was a soft hiss. It was coming. It pushed upon the water, and the waves tried to take its strength, but they couldn't stop it. It was coming!

My bangs fluttered about my eyes, and I closed them, smiling. “Let me go,” I whispered, and his hand dropped.

A slow thrum lifted through me as I touched the mast, echoing between my palms and my feet, setting my soul to ring with the pulse of heaven and earth. The ocean was resounding with the waves building a hundred miles out, but here the water was still flat. The rays could feel it. They fed on the emotion, and I fed on theirs. My grip tightened on the mast. I had to be higher.

“Tess!”

Jeck yanked me backwards, and I would have fallen had he not caught me.

“Let go,” I threatened softly, turning to find him holding my arm again.

“You can't climb the mast,” he said, his eyes angry. “You'll break it.”

“But it's coming.” I twisted my arms until he let go. “I have to get higher.”

“What's coming?”

“My wind.”

His face went expressionless, glancing at the wind pushing against the water as if it was a bad thing, not good. “Oh God, Tess. You called the wind.”

The sail snapped firm against the ropes. My head came up, and I tasted the air. The glory of its power swept me as the first strength touched my skin. In my mind, the sound of whispering grew, the zephyr in me drawing it home. A strong gust hit us, streaming my hair back and pulling the ropes until they creaked. The raft shuddered, and Jeck fell to a half crouch, swearing under his breath.

I couldn't help it. I sprang for the mast. I had to be in it. I had to be among it. I had called it, and it was mine!

“Tess!” A hand gripped my dress and pulled me down. A low wave sloshed over the raft, making a cool current over my feet that went colder.

“Let go,” I snarled, as the air pushed against me, the thrum in my head promising it could free me if I listened hard enough. But he had my arm. His eyes were wide and full of fear. I remembered fear. I didn't have any. The wind was calling. There was nothing else.

“Let it go, Tess,” he said. “You have to let it go. You called the wind—I don't know how—but you have to let it go. Let it go now, before it takes you!”

He was holding my shoulders, but my head was up, watching the moon. There were no clouds. The wind pulled through my hair and swelled the sail as it swelled in my soul. I had summoned it, and yet I was chained to the earth. I could feel the anger building in me, the anger that he dare try to keep me from joining the power I had summoned. It was mine. “Take your hands off me,” I said softly. My lips pressed together and my pulse hammered. Venom made me warm, and my skin tingled where the wind touched it.

He shook his head. “Tess, this was a mistake. Players don't call the wind because they can't control it. Let it go.” His voice was soothing, whipping my blood to a frenzy. “Let it go.”

A wicked contriving filled me as I looked to the moonlit horizon, silver and jagged. The raft jostled, but I held my balance, pushed by the wind and the waves. I controlled the wind; the wind did not control me. I was stronger than it. It was mine. And after it did as I demanded, I was going to keep it. I was so strong, I didn't need to hold to my word.

A sudden anger filled me when I realized he was still gripping my arm. “Let—go.”

He shook his head. “I won't.” His grip tightened, imprisoning me. Hurting.

Fury, hot and potent, rushed from my middle to my hands. The wind responded, swirling about us, soaking us as waves ran freely over the raft. I reached for him, placing my hands atop his shoulders. His eyes widened as he saw his death in my eyes. Clean and pure, it flowed from me, filling him to break him from his soul. He would let go of me. I would be free of him!

A cry of victory tore from me, almost unheard over the wind thumping the canvas and the waves crashing to make my feet warm, then cold. The hands imprisoning me clenched in a spasm, then strengthened. “No,” a ragged voice rasped, and my joy turned to affront. He wasn't dead. He was still here!

“Free me!” I shouted, the sound of the wind goading me. I could feel it, singing to me—whispering words not spoken since the birth of time.

“No,” he said again, his brown eyes wide and his jaw clenched under his beard. I howled and screamed at him, and the wind howled and screamed with me. I bit and fought. I thrashed and wrestled. He wrapped his arms about me and pulled me to the mast. He bound me with his arms and imprisoned me with his body.

The waves crashed over us, soaking and streaming through my hair, and I shrieked my rage. The raft tilted and righted itself. He wouldn't let go! I couldn't kill him! He was stronger than I. But I was the wind, and nothing was stronger than that. The wind could kill him. The wind could break him. Then I could be free.

I pulled to the wind, calling it to me with promises I had no intent to fulfill. With a contriving strength, it surged from the depths of the ocean, pushing the waves higher, running before them like a coursing hound over hills, its existence turned to one purpose. It laughed at my promises of freedom, telling me I couldn't give something I didn't have and that I couldn't hold it. Soon it would be free—and it could take me with it.

Denying it, I demanded obedience. The wind rebelled. The raft under me bobbed, and the waves soaked me. I didn't care.

“Tess!” a voice cried, loud in my ear.

Confusion jerked me from the sky. It wasn't the wind in my thoughts. The wind was both promising and demanding freedom, laughing at me as if I were a child with a string to hold a stallion. No . . . it had been a dark voice shouting to be heard, shouting to force a way into my head. “Let me go!” I cried, unable to move as the voice said my name over and over. I hated it. I couldn't hear the wind with it talking at me.